


In the Long Run

by silver_etoile



Category: The Maze Runner (2014), The Maze Runner Series - James Dashner
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Cross Country, M/M, track team
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-18
Updated: 2015-01-18
Packaged: 2018-03-08 00:30:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3189017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silver_etoile/pseuds/silver_etoile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thomas has only been in Portland for a month, and making friends in high school is about as easy as running a two minute mile. He can't get the guys on the cross country team to stop calling him "greenie" and there's the little problem of the funny feeling he gets when Newt, the team captain, smiles at him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Long Run

**Author's Note:**

> Idk. I was watching the movie today and wondered why I hadn't seen this pairing before so here I am. I might turn this into a series if there's any interest. We'll see, I guess. Enjoy!

Thomas heard someone coming before he saw them. Following the dirt path that zigzagged through the wooded area of the park, he jogged side by side with Minho, keeping a steady pace. 

“Keep up, greenie,” Newt said as he whipped past him on the trail, a hand reaching out to hit Thomas’ shoulder as he went by. Turning around and jogging backwards a few steps, Newt shot a grin at Thomas. “Last one back to the gym is on towel duty.”

Newt turned back around and jogged on while Thomas and Minho followed behind.

“When are you guys gonna stop calling me that?” Thomas asked with somewhat forlorn sigh.

Minho barely glanced at him, checking the time on his watch as they jogged. “You’ve only been on the team two weeks, man. Prove yourself in the next meet and maybe someone will learn your name.”

His hopes weren’t high, Thomas had to admit, that anyone on the track team would learn his name before the next meet, but Minho was right. After all, he’d only moved to Portland a month ago. He was lucky he even had someone to call a friend. At his last school, he hadn’t been there long enough for anyone to notice him, let alone befriend him. It was the curse of having parents who worked for the government.

They had promised this would be the last time, though. Thomas was already a junior in high school, and it would have been nice to stay somewhere longer than a few months, to possibly even make friends this time. 

The path veered to the right, over the crest of a gentle hill and out between the clump of tall fir trees that populated every park in Portland, it seemed. Thomas did enjoy how green it was in Oregon, a stark change to the New Mexican desert he’d just left. He just wasn’t sure he could get used to the rain. Luckily, the sky had been blue all day, only now cooling off as the sun set and evening fell.

“Pick it up,” Minho said as they crested the hill, the park spreading out below them. In the distance, the flat, grey roof of the high school glinted in the light. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be last back. Newt doesn’t kid about towel duty.”

Newt. The team captain. So far, Thomas hadn’t learned much about him except that he was on exchange from England. That and his smile gave Thomas a weird feeling in his stomach.

He shook away the thoughts of Newt’s smile and followed Minho down the hill. The whole point of joining the team had been to make friends, and to get out of the house. At least cross country meant not getting home until well after five most days. If he could avoid his parents, they wouldn’t be able to tell him they’d changed their mind about staying. They always did it, and Thomas was eager to avoid it. Maybe this time really would be different.

“Heads up, boys!”

Behind them, a few girls from the girls team came jogging up. The one with dark hair, whose name Thomas could never quite remember, smiled at him as she passed. Something else twisted Thomas’ stomach as the sight, but it wasn’t the same thing Newt’s smile did.

“Think Theresa’s hot for you,” Minho muttered as they followed the girls and picked up the pace as they reached flat ground. 

“No, that’s not—I mean, she can’t—” Thomas found himself stumbling over his words as a flush rose on his neck, completely unrelated to the three miles he’d just run.

Looking over, Minho laughed to himself. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you flustered, Tommy boy. Except that first practice when you tripped over your own feet.”

It wasn’t something Thomas liked to remember, though Gally brought it up all the time. Thomas still hadn’t figured out what Gally’s problem with him was, but he’d had it since day one.

“Let’s just get back to the gym,” Thomas said, avoiding any other things Minho might say about Theresa. 

“Sure thing, greenie,” Minho agreed, and Thomas didn’t argue about the name this time.

*

“Towel duty.” Gally sounded positively elated as he dropped his wet towel at Thomas’ feet. 

“Shit,” Thomas muttered. He still wasn’t sure how just he had gotten towel duty when it had been him and Minho to arrive last. Minho had simply vanished, however, and now Thomas was faced with a nearly empty room filled with towels to pick up and toss in the laundry.

He didn’t bother to pick up Gally’s as Gally left, laughing with Ben. Instead, he headed to the showers and turned on the water. The rest of the locker room was empty, silent but for the distant sound of doors opening and closing somewhere else in the school. 

The clock on the wall told him it was nearly five-thirty. Better than going home at three. 

Thomas stripped out of his sweat-soaked tee shirt and running shorts, tossing them on the bench and stepping under the warm spray of water. For a moment, he closed his eyes. Sometimes, he wished he could just keep running forever. He’d never have to go home, never have to move again. The only consolation was that there were only two years to college. Then he would be able to pick somewhere and stay there. For four years at least, which would be longer than anywhere else he’d lived so far.

Opening his eyes, he sighed. It was more of a foolish hope than anything else, but he could try to enjoy it while he could. It had already been a month in Portland.

He washed quickly, rinsing off the sweat and grabbing a clean towel to wrap around his waist as he padded back through the lockers. Tossing his dirty clothes in his bag, he pulled out his jeans.

A noise behind him, the sharp snap of a metal door made him jump, dropping his jeans, and whipping around.

“Relax, greenie.” Newt stood at the end of the row, freshly showered and wearing a plain white tee shirt that seemed too big for his lithe frame. Despite being thin, Newt was mostly muscle considering the definition in his arms, and the one time Thomas had seen him pull his shirt off to change. He hadn’t been able to get the image of Newt’s washboard stomach out of his head, and it took all of his will not to think of it now as Newt approached him. “I’m not taking the piss.”

“What?” Thomas bent down awkwardly to grab his jeans off the floor. 

Newt shook his head with a smile, and god, Thomas wished he wouldn’t do that. Avoiding Newt’s gaze, he turned to his locker and pulled out a blue tee instead. 

Honestly, Thomas wasn’t sure what to do. Every time he went to a new school, there was always someone, always someone with a smile like Newt’s, with a body that Thomas spent weeks jerking off thinking of, and always someone who was only interested in girls. 

“You’re on towel duty?” Newt asked, with the beautiful accent that made Thomas think of terrible things, things he shouldn’t have been thinking of with Newt standing so close, and himself only in a towel. “Gotta step up the pace next time, mate, get here faster.”

“I thought cross country was about endurance.” Thomas pulled on his shirt, mostly so he wouldn’t have to look at Newt. 

“You don’t win the race comin’ in last,” Newt pointed out. He was standing right next to Thomas, unable to go around him, blocked by the bench in the middle of the row. 

“Well, don’t tell me you came to help,” Thomas said, gesturing at the towels strewn around the locker room.

“I’ve done my time.” Newt shook his dirty blond hair out of his eyes. 

There wasn’t much room to move except backwards, and Thomas stumbled slightly as Newt moved in closer. His heart had climbed its way into his throat as they stood there. It wasn’t that Newt was keeping him there, his back against the lockers now as Newt stood before him, only a few inches separating their bodies in the empty locker room. 

Thomas had never actually been this close to someone like… someone like Newt, to say the least. He felt as though he’d just finished running a marathon even though he hadn’t taken one step. Swallowing, his eyes darted to the left, wondering if he should make some excuse about having to get home before he did something stupid.

Newt’s hand came to rest on the lockers by Thomas’ shoulder and he shifted. Thomas wondered if he could hear the way his heart was pounding on his ribcage, because it roared in his ears. What was going on? These kinds of things only happened in dreams that left him sweaty and shaky when he woke up.

“How do you like it here so far?” Newt asked quietly. “I thought America was going to be quite different, but here, Oregon, it’s almost like home. Weather-wise anyhow. Still can’t quite get used to driving on the wrong side of the road.”

“It-it’s nice here,” Thomas forced himself to say. What was Newt doing? Was it some kind of hazing for the team? See how far he’d go?

“Yeah?” Newt asked, gazing at Thomas for a long moment. “Tell me, did you have a girlfriend back in… wherever it was you came from.”

“New Mexico, and no.” Thomas shook his head, licking his dry lips. The conversation was casual, but Newt was close enough that Thomas could smell his shampoo. “I only was there a couple months.”

“Sounds terrible.”

Thomas shrugged awkwardly. “It is what it is. I should probably…” He nodded at the locker room and the towels. 

“Right,” Newt agreed, and Thomas thought for a moment that he might back up, but he didn’t. “Let me help you get started.”

Reaching over, his fingers curled around the towel still around Thomas’ waist and pulled. Thomas jumped as it gave way easily and came off in Newt’s hand.

For a moment, nobody moved. Thomas stared straight at the lockers across from him as if they might provide some sort of answer as to what was going on, what he should do. Newt’s gaze didn’t flicker down, remaining on Thomas’ face.

“Thomas,” he said quietly, and Thomas couldn’t help but notice the use of his name. “Are you alright?”

“Y-yeah,” Thomas said finally, chancing a glance at Newt. He’d been naked with guys before, but not like this, not just the two of them with Newt still holding onto the towel as though he would let Thomas take it back if he wanted.

“Are you certain?”

Thomas swallowed the nerves rising in his throat and nodded. “Yeah. Yeah.”

The towel dropped from Newt’s hand to the floor, falling in a pile on the concrete. Then Newt’s fingers grazed over his jaw for half a second before he leaned in and kissed Thomas.

Thomas couldn’t say he’d kissed many people, okay, like any people, but he’d always pictured it to be different, softer, not so wet, but Newt’s tongue slid in against his, and he reacted out of some kind of instinct rather than knowledge. Newt’s lips were dry and chapped, but it still felt good when he pressed them to Thomas’, sucking on his bottom lip until Thomas made an embarrassing noise and jerked back.

“Wait,” he panted, more out of breath than he ever was when running, “what are you…”

Newt didn’t answer, pushing his body in against Thomas’, and Thomas’ eyes fluttered at the warm pressure, something he hadn’t experienced before. All he could do was sigh out a curse and try not to flail when Newt’s hand slid down his stomach and wrapped around his cock.

Thomas flushed, embarrassed at how hard he was already, how obvious it was that he wanted this. 

“You like that, yeah?” Newt murmured against Thomas’ neck, licking at a tendon as Thomas’ whole body shuddered.

Thomas couldn’t even respond. This had never happened to him before, and he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do. He knew he wouldn’t last long, not with Newt’s small but strong hand jerking him off. He barely lasted very long by himself, without someone else there sucking behind his ear, a hand tangled in his hair. 

“Shit,” he cursed as he gasped for breath, fist curled against the locker. 

Newt’s hand twisted, and with each movement, Thomas’ stomach jerked, tightening, and he bit his lip, willing himself to last just a little longer. It was nearly impossible, and when Newt kissed him again, hard and fast, tongues tangling together, Thomas whined despite himself.

“I’m gonna—” was all he got out before he came, legs shaking, head slamming into the lockers behind him with a loud bang. Even the momentary pain couldn’t outweigh the feeling flooding his body, so much different than just jerking off. 

Even as he finished, he still felt Newt’s hand around his dick, and he glanced down as he panted for breath. It looked strange, someone else’ hand around him, but Newt stroked him again, slowly, and Thomas squeezed his eyes shut at the reverberating shudder that passed through him.

“Jesus,” he breathed, letting his head fall back against the lockers. Newt grabbed the towel from the floor and wiped off his hand while Thomas caught his breath.

It took a minute, but by the time Thomas’ breathing had evened out, his brain had kicked into gear. What the fuck had he just done? And with Newt, the captain of the team, a senior, who had to be straight. They were always straight. It was what kept Thomas from getting caught, from getting in trouble, from having to deal with it.

When he glanced at Newt, Newt didn’t look phased. He simply handed over the towel. 

“You’ve still got some work to do, greenie.”

Thomas didn’t respond, frowning slightly. He hadn’t imagined that? No. He still had no pants on. 

“Better get to it or Gally’ll have your head,” Newt went on. He paused a second while Thomas remained leaning against the locker, completely at a loss as to what had just happened. Newt smiled slightly and pressed a hand to Thomas’ stomach. “Coming in last isn’t all bad, eh? I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Newt stepped away and Thomas let out a breath and raised his hand to where Newt’s had pressed. They were just going to ignore it, he guessed, though how he could forget that, he had no idea. Turning to his locker, he pulled his jeans out again.

“Thomas,” Newt said as he reached the door, and Thomas looked up, one leg in his jeans. Newt merely met his eyes, the ghost of a smirk on his face as he tapped the door frame with his fingers and left.

Thomas watched until he heard the larger door shut to the hallway. Tugging on his jeans, he pulled up the zipper and stared at the locker room and the towels. He still wasn’t sure what any of that had meant, but he got the feeling it hadn’t been bad, and that was good. Very good.

Shutting his locker, Thomas smiled to himself and began picking up the towels around the room. The clock told him it was nearly six o’clock. Even better.

*

FIN.


End file.
